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Friday, March 8, 2013

Bees love caffeine buzz, study shows

Honeybees, like tired office employees, like their
caffeine, suggests a new study finding that bees are more likely to remember
plants containing the java ingredient. Caffeine occurs naturally in the nectar
of coffee and citrus flowers. Bees that fed on caffeinated nectar were three
times more likely to remember a flower's scent than bees fed sugar alone. The
findings, detailed Thursday in the journal Science,
show how plants can manipulate animals' memories to improve their odds of
pollination.

Plants produce caffeine as a defense mechanism — a
bitter-tasting brew to fend off insects. Fortunately for the bees, the caffeine
levels are below the threshold that they can taste, but high enough to affect
their memory, according to the Science
article.

The mention of bees is a reminder that summer is
just around the corner. That means Discovery Student Adventures is preparing to
jet away to amazing destinations around the world.